Paper Library, Riga, 2014

One Latvian curator invited for the Paper Object Festival as a part of Riga 2014, European Capital of Culture. During the site visit around cozy wooden house district of Pārdaugava and the Kalnciema Quarter there was found a graffitied stone building at the edge of small park. It was a Zvirbulis (sparrow in Latvian) library, lonely-looking one-storey building. We found there can be something what architect can do through installation.

One Latvian curator invited for the Paper Object Festival as a part of Riga 2014, European Capital of Culture. During the site visit around cozy wooden house district of Pārdaugava and the Kalnciema Quarter there was found a graffitied stone building at the edge of small park. It was a Zvirbulis (sparrow in Latvian) library, lonely-looking one-storey building. We found there can be something what architect can do through installation. It was a challenge for us to create a large-scale installation out of paper even though paper has been our favourite material for models and drawings.
The proposal softly encases the library in fresh and crisp folded white cardboards to highlight its unique location, its importance to the community and its need for love and care.
The building originally was built as a wooden summer house in 1880 and then turned into a public library in the 1960’s and covered with silica bricks. This time in 2014 we were adding one more layer by paper which represents the books and the library, almost from inside out. We hoped that this installation would let the forgotten “sparrow” fly once again.
Installation was on view during the festival from 27.06 – 20.07.2014.